What the hell have you done, HoodieDog?

Whoever said change was good was a liar. Probably.

This is the most significant change to LolSnaps since our beginning in May 2010. And every time we make some kind of change which forces users to engage with the site differently, it’s a pretty significant issue for the community. With this change, we think it is overwhelmingly good… but many users may disagree and when there’s disagreement our efforts should focus on creating clarity. In other words, creating some level of understanding as to why we made the change. The answer comes down to 2 significant issues.

1. The old LolSnaps.com was based on outdated technology

We’ve been using some of the same code for almost 7 years and it was clear a couple of years ago that we needed to move to updated and progressive web platforms and technologies. In fact, it has taxed our lead developer for almost 5 years just to keep the site up and running. And let’s face it… LolSnaps is NOT a complex website or structure. It shouldn’t have been this hard. However, our lack of investment has been showing for a couple of years.

With this website change, we’ve moved to a content management system used by millions around the world: WordPress. WordPress has some amazing capabilities and frustrating quirks, but it is stable, secure, and user friendly. Out of the box, it replicates 80%+ of the old LolSnaps functionality and gives us huge room to add things we think might be fun and interesting in the future. There will be some adjustments for the first several weeks as we fine-tune and optimize the site and you’ll have time to explore at your leisure some of the cool new features we’ve added to LolSnaps.com.

2. User experience has been inconsistent with no real opportunity to experiment with new ideas.

For those who have been visiting LolSnaps.com from your mobile device, I salute you. I’ve said it many times: our old mobile site sucked donkey ass. We couldn’t show videos and other embedded content. Navigation was so gamey that users ended up clicking on advertisements more than on “Previous” or “Next”. We had no way of adding additional features to our desktop version of the site without having to spend even more money on the mobile site (yes, they were coded separately). With our new website, everything that works on a desktop computer also works on a tablet and mobile phone. One set of code for all environments. Folks, this isn’t particularly innovative… we’re several years behind the rest of the internet. But I’m glad we’re finally here.

So, what’s changed?

We’ve really tried to limit changes in the core user experience. We continue to use the Disqus comment system we’ve had for several years. Desktop users will still be able to enjoy our keyboard short cuts to navigate and vote more efficiently. We still have a VOTE section, renamed to FRESH and the NEW section is now known as the FRONT PAGE. It still takes community votes to advance to the FRONT PAGE. Much of our navigation has remained unchanged and the basic layout and color scheme is intact, but there’s an extensive list of changes and improvements. Here’s our take on the most important ones.

When coming to the homepage (FRONT PAGE), users can opt to scroll through a page with several posts on it (multi-post view) or can simply click on the first post to navigate the way we’ve done it for years (single post view). Single post view is the only way to see and/or participate in the comments. As a side note, multi-page view is particularly attractive to mobile users as it allows them to scroll through many posts at a time without having to take additional action.

For the desktop users, the sidebar navigation has changed a lot. Not many used the old format very much, so we don’t think people will miss it much. Some of our sidebars now have larger thumbnails and they support gif and MP4 images.

Community members are encouraged to continue to vote on posts and you do not have to log in or create an account to do so, but the number of upvotes and downvotes are not shown… just the sum of the two (upvotes minus downvotes).

Users can opt to create an account to enjoy added features, but this is not mandatory. A few of the added features include a private messaging capability, a points system we call ‘Fake Internet Points‘ (FIP), and the ability to upload posts. Only users with an account will be able to upload images.

We can now upload many more types of images and have them be seen across all platforms. These types include MP4, Instagram, Twitter, and DailyMotion in addition to the formats we used in the past such as Youtube, Vimeo, jpg, png, and gif.

We hope you enjoy the new site. Leave your comments, concerns, or suggestions in the comments section below. We will monitor the comments and try to reply as quickly as possible, but it may take a day or two to get back with you or respond to your comment. You can also contact us via private message.

Published on: May 10, 2016

HoodieDog

The biggest challenge for the time being is that the navigation between FRESH and FRONT PAGE is messed up. We’re working on the solution.

—

The discoverability of the single-post view is pretty low. I, certainly, wouldn’t have known how to get that back without reading about it here!

HoodieDog

I think that will be the biggest transition for those who really frequent the site looking for comments. Others, who just want to look at the image, may find it quicker.

—

Considering that the comments-section is one of the biggest reasons I frequent Lolsnaps and not some other site in its stead, I would like to request that you still consider whether you want to demote the comments-section in this way. I’m not saying you have to do anything — it is your site, after all and all that — but the way the comments-section has always been prominently accessible was one of the defining things about the site and now it just seems… very same-y as so many other “funnysites.”

*shrug* Not trying to piss on your parade or anything, don’t take it personally.

HoodieDog

Most people are leaning that same way. So am I. We’ll work on a solution in the next days and see if we can make it happen. Thanks again for your input.

Charles Cochran

I view comments sometimes. The main thing with the multipost view is not being able to left/right click to swap between them. Can be a hassle and was one of the reasons I’ve been with lolsnaps for as long as I have.

HoodieDog

Good point. We’re going to code up a homepage single post view and let people give their input (most will probably love it). But give us some time to work out the bugs in the rest of the site.

Johnny Alpha

& good boy! btw how does Disqus get involved?

HoodieDog

They don’t. Other than being our comment system, logging into our site does not you into Disqus… and vice versa. Wish it wasn’t so. Nice thing is, all the comments from the old site are now here in the new site so they transferred over quicker that we thought they would.

I was on the posts from 27 of june…i took my time with the posts…reading the comments….now i lost a lot of posts…i feel betrayed 🙁
You could at least announce the change…about a week from happening…or something…

HoodieDog

Your comment is fair.

All the snaps from the old site are still here, but the navigation system needs to be fixed to make it easier to get around. This will get you close: June 28-ish. Just hit PREVIOUS or NEXT and enjoy! https://dev.lolsnaps.com/funny/194094

kennyanu

Thanks 😀
But the “PREVIOUS or NEXT” are not working properly. Can you have a look please? 🙂

PS: i found the link i was on:
lolsnaps.com/funny/195102/comedian-has-a-confetti-cannon-on-stage-and-gives-an-audienc

This is a pretty significant bug. Doesn’t impact many, but may take some work on our end to programmatically audit all the next and previous buttons and make sure they are working. It’s on our list of bugs, but it may take 2-3 weeks before we get to it.

HoodieDog

This should be fixed. Please confirm.

halon

Yep .. can confirm all fixed thank you. And thank you so creating lolsnaps. I love it here.

Johnny Alpha

you mean the boring cunts who scan??

seth clammy

i guess with this new interface i’ll read comments far less frequently

also, idk if anyone requested it yet, but can you make some buttons to scroll to next post? hate to do it myself
and maybe some way to show comments without going through links would be good

HoodieDog

We’re going to roll back to the single snap view like the old snap. There’s some technical issues, but we’ll have something people can look at in a couple of days.

Name_Unknown

Agreed. It took me forever to figure out how to do it. Maybe add a more visible toggle? Or a setting to where when I just type lolsnaps.com it takes me directly to the single view instead of the multi. (Maybe it is supposed to do that but I haven’t gotten it to work yet)

seth clammy

lol nope. imho it’s either “shut the old one for good” or “don’t even bother changing anything”, cuz if people have an option of staying on pld one, they’ll stay.

New layout doesn’t make me want to see comments. And comments were important part of lolsnaps. I just can scroll down all snaps, down/upvote and that’s all. Nah..

HoodieDog

It will force users to make one more click in order to view one snap at a time… then just follow the PREVIOUS and NEXT buttons. We took a deep breath on that one and are still holding our breath.

Shivers

Seconding Hellyeah. I explicitly made Lolsnaps my main site because of the sense of community.

Hoodie, no disrespect is intended, but if I’m not mistaken Reddit, Imgur, IWSMT, and probably a dozen other sites all each post many more images than Lolsnaps per day. The thing that makes this site better (in my opinion) is the sense of community and commenting. The new design is based on the premise that people will view the site more as an infinite-scroll, with no engagement. To be entirely honest, at first glance I thought that commenting had been entirely eliminated at first; had I not explicitly been poking at the site I never would have found the comments.

Do you happen to know the numbers on commentors versus lurkers? I don’t know what kind of traffic happens on here. If we’re definitively in the minority and infinite-scroll is going to bring in more traffic, then of course you have to do what’s best for the site, but I think it’d lose something. If so, can you at least implement a redirect page that we can bookmark that will bring us to the most recent snap to eliminate the extra step?

HoodieDog

Lurkers are 95% of the visitors, but many of them come for the comments. Lose the comments and we’ll lose the community. We’ll give it a week or so and if everyone wants the one page-per-snap view… we’ll do that.

Sorcha

I also like the idea @shivers has for having a bookmark… I liked that I could just go to the site and be automatically at the latest post without having to see all the thumbnails… if I wanted that, I would be on that other site I wont promote…lol.

https://www.facebook.com/athi.narayanan.96 ssttooppiitt

Is the order of snaps in single snap view and multi snap view different? Is it possible to have it same?
Though I rarely comment, I almost read the comments in every snap, my personal preference would be to land in s single snap view and switch to multi snap view if required. At a little more deeper level, I feel that the multi snap view should be removed completely, it is going to break the community. The single snap view is like the living room of the house, where everyone is at least a silent member. The multi snap view would make the site literally what it is “sitting at a desktop in your room, lonely”
And I am one of the 3% users who use the previous-next in the right side thumbnails. Used that to move to snaps that I didn’t appreciate on the first look. The quality of snaps and comments offering different perspective, makes it desirable to revisit. Is there a way to search or find old content. I am used to finding up to 3 week old content based on the order of snaps using the right panel. Would feel great to have that feature back, even if doesn’t look exactly the same way the functionality would be nice advantage.

HoodieDog

Thanks for weighing on it. We’ll get the navigation bugs fixed and let people get used to it for a week or so and then come back to the community to figure out the preference. Honestly, I’m absolutely fine with either.

https://www.facebook.com/athi.narayanan.96 ssttooppiitt

Also the need for a click to load the gif overrides the switch to single snap view. Please check that out as well.

HoodieDog

Everyone is reporting different experiences, so let me make sure I understand. You would like to autoload the gifs… or have the option to either ‘click to load’ versus autoload?

Thanks for the feedback.

https://www.facebook.com/athi.narayanan.96 ssttooppiitt

I am fine with either click to load or auto load. But with click to load, the click to load functionality overrides the switch to single snap functionality.
Or in simple how to switch to single snap view on click to load gifs?

HoodieDog

You have to click the title/caption.

HoodieDog

I think a good chunk of the navigation issues have been resolved… and we’re back to single snap view!

Hellyeah

I know how it works. It’s quite obvious, but still. And one more thing: due to my computer ‘configuration’ I’d really need to have ‘source’ to be able to see some post – animation etc. I can boot into another system or use some other browser, but I don’t really think I will. And this will make me sad that everybody can see something that I’m not able to see and eventually this will make me frustrated and aggresive 😉
And I’ve seen someone pointing lack of next/previous buttons on the right, when thumbnails are.

the dude

im not a fan of clicking one extra time to view comments. i liked the conversations and jokes and puns that were in the comment section. dont get me wrong, i know that i can click on the picture and view the comments, but it was easier the other way.

HoodieDog

We’re back to the single snap view. Hope that helps.

the dude

holy changes, batman! this whole site is revamped. this is weird to navigate.

the dude

one big thing i see, @@HoodieDog:disqus , it doesnt have a “previous” or “next” under the thumbnails on the right of a picture you are viewing. not the ones under the picture, but to the right.

HoodieDog

Did you use that button on the previous site much? Our ‘click analysis’ showed it was used by less than 3% of users. I’ll be interested to get others’ comments on that feature.

the dude

yeah, i used it. it was a quicker way to scroll through pictures i wanted to see. where funny captions caught my eye. stuff like that.

HoodieDog

Duly noted. We can change the sidebar pretty easily. Give me a couple of days to get to it.

well, since there is a next/previous under the main pictures, you might not have to do a next/previous under that.

the dude

unless it is under the “popular” thumbnails after you click on a picture.

the dude

in case you cant tell, im slowly getting you to change it back…..
MUAHAHAHAHAHA

HoodieDog

You and about 100 hundred other Snappers. And I wouldn’t even be mad… just can’t do it with the old code. That shit was keeping me up at night. I’m pretty confident we’ll get the bugs worked out and get a consensus about the single vs multi snap view. Plus getting things fine tuned so it acts more like the features everyone wants to retain.

I used it. Particularly when I was looking for a snap I just saw a little while ago.I generally preferred the smaller thumbnails as well. The big ones (particularly the gifs) look like those old school “has science gone too far?” type ads.

slayz

being a nexter, i use it a lot. that’s how i gauge where i’m currently at in comparison to the latest post. imho the old thumbnail for NEW posts are more useful than having thumbnails for POPULAR posts, as they’re not NEW posts and are not in sequence. and you could still access POPULAR posts from the link at the top. well, you could still do both thumbnails for NEW and POPULAR posts as you still have some space on the right. just move the POPULAR thumbnails further down.

slayz

oh, and it also helps if i’m stuck in a loop, especially if Phoenix is not around to link us to the correct page.

http://www.facebook.com/sydamen Summer

I don’t like it! Change it back! I will poop on your doorstep!

Will take some time to get used to .-. Feels a bit too mobile-y for my liking but that’s just personal preference i guess. I can see how new users might find this design more intuitive.
It would be interesting though, to be able to link your disqus account with your profile here. I was a bit confused about the profile at first 😛

HoodieDog

Agreed. Disqus is not particularly friendly at allowing sites to link users. They go in reverse… if you have an account already with a website, you can use those same login creds to set up a Disqus account. We would have preferred just the opposite. 🙁

http://www.facebook.com/sydamen Summer

I wonder how comments will look like from now on. Will the plebs use the inbuilt comment feature and the older users disqus? Or am I not getting something here?

HoodieDog

It’s the same Disqus system. The only one we have. It’s take a couple of weeks to bring over all the comments from the old site.

http://www.facebook.com/sydamen Summer

Hitchhiking this post for something else. The contact button is a bit bricked for me it seems? might just be traffic related, but better be sure to let you know 😀
anyways. I was going to submit a smol bug concerning the headerlayout on a 4:3 monitor. It’s a bit bricked

We’re wide open to change on the autoload of gifs. Nothing is set in stone. We had a lot of mobile users complain on the old site that gifs autoloaded on their mobile and they had to wait until the load finished before they could navigate.

Kaysif

I can understand that, but under this new set up they 50/50 either open as a video or crash the page.

HoodieDog

Understood. We will get this fixed. It may take a week or so, but it’s fixable.

Drop Message

In single-snap view, it would be nice to have them auto-play, because I’m lazy. On the multi-snap scrolling view, I think it’s good that they don’t.

However, if auto-play is an issue even in single-snap view for mobile users or others with a limited connection, maybe a hotkey could be added to have the snap play for us lazy folks? Or does that already exist and I just don’t know about it? I think that would be an acceptable compromise, for me at least.

HoodieDog

Good stuff. Right now, the community seems to be leaning toward the single snap view and we’d probably just auto play gifs. And actually, they’re not technically gifs anymore… the new site converts them automatically to MP4 files, which are much thinner and user friendly.

Drop Message

Yes, gifs are … not very resource efficient, to say the least. I always notice when I download an mp4 or a webm and then have to convert it to a gif to upload somewhere because they don’t accept newer formats (*cough* Disqus *cough*). The size just balloons. And then of course it’s over the size limit, so I have to downgrade the quality until it fits. Ah well.

I shall eagerly await the future of LOLsnaps then.

HoodieDog

We’re going to move the gifs to autoplay this week.

HoodieDog

We’ve gone back to the single snap view, so life should be much better for you when you’re on the site. We’ll get the gifs to autoplay this week.

Thanks for your patience.

Kaysif

I love the level of communication and involvement you have with your users. Wish more sites were like that.

ComputerPony

I don’t mind the new layout. But bring back my keyboard shortcuts. ;~; I’ve always used the “N” to jump to the newest snap, and not having that capability sliiightly bugs me.

HoodieDog

To be honest, we completely forgot that one. It’ll go on our dev list. Thanks!

ComputerPony

Thanks hoodie. :3 Just would make it easier for those of us who like to browse the randoms.

HoodieDog

We’ve got this on our list of items to tackle this week. Now that we’re back to a single snap view, should be pretty easy to do.

ComputerPony

That sounds good! I’m sure most everyone prefers the single view.

AfterMath

Good going people, i would love to see a category of some sort or tags system to allow us to view a certain type of images, like for dogs and cats stuff, and politisnaps, you know what i mean.

It would be cool too if you relate the names of the sections to the website, like “FreshSnaps” and “HotSnaps” or “SnappySnaps”, you get the Idea…

And Thank you 🙂

http://www.facebook.com/sydamen Summer

when uploading your snap, there is a feature where you can put tags (3 at max) not sure how that comes into play though

AfterMath

I did not know that, Thanks

HoodieDog

We have that in place and you can see it when you post. We just don’t force people to pick a category yet. Our biggest hangup is the our system — without some pretty heavy lifting — won’t allow you you pick a category and then view the posts in category/chronological order. So, we’ll have to solve that challenge first. Probably a next year thing for us to take a look at.

AfterMath

Keep up the good work

Andre Poreskin

GIFs aren’t loading in Chrome. Although on some GIFs, they load after I scroll down the page a bit then stop when I scroll back up to view the entire GIF.

Oddly enough, the GIFs load well in the sidebar.

HoodieDog

I think you found a bug. They load, but in many cases you have to double click them to get them to play.

Are you on mobile or desktop?

Vava

Same here with chrome on desktop. Clicking once is enough to play them. Is it by design or are they supposed to auto-play?

HoodieDog

That’s by design (to save bandwidth), but lots of folks are thinking we should reconsider that move. You?

Vava

TLDR version is YES.
I say automatic is better when it comes to viewing one post on one page. But on the main page where you see multiple posts, I see why it would be simpler to load those you want manually.

Andre Poreskin

+1 in favor of clicking GIFs to play. Better bandwidth usually equates to better load times.

Andre Poreskin

Desktop.

Just checked and so far they’re good to go now.

HoodieDog

Hmmm…

FizzPop

Is that a thing, having to click on a .gif for it to play? (I haven’t actually browsed yet… I came straight here, first, so I’m not actually familiar with the new functionality)
Can I say, if it’s not a thing – that would actually be awesome. I would prefer that.
Living on the tip of Africa, I think it needless to say, good internet is not common. If I fall on a .gif snap and it takes forever to load, it also takes forever to comment while waiting, or even to leave the snap in order to carry on with (semi)smooth browsing. This problem is heightened on mobile.
But this is a slow internet problem and not a site problem (maybe it is, I dunno), but I know it would be selfish to ask that everyone be forced to have click-to-play over auto-play, but it would be great if that was an option to choose (I know that’s probably something quite complicated to organise, but it would be awesome… It’s a setting on facebook that I have come to appreciate dearly)

Otherwise, thank you 🙂 You’ve all put in a lot of hard work and while change will take time to get used to for users, the effort to try keep as much the same is appreciated.

HoodieDog

We’ve been working on fixing bugs and improving navigation, but will get to work on gifs this week.

Andre Poreskin

Is it safe to assume that your lead dev will be taking some vacation time soon? 😉

HoodieDog

More like NO VACATION. Too many bugs to fix. BACK TO WORK!

Ara Raven

Btw, I wanted to make an account, because duh I love this site LOLSNAPS 4 LYFE YO, but there’s a problem when you try to make an account from amongst the snaps as opposed to the ‘front page’. Your hotkeys are still on for the snap even when in the popup for making an account. So since my name has an R in it, guess what happened every time I hit the R. -_-

Went to the front page where hotkeys don’t do anything and everything worked fine, but yeah. That’s a thing. Do I get a cookie for finding a bug?

EDIT: Also, I really miss having frames around the snaps. Just personal pref I guess.

HoodieDog

Cookie awarded. Thanks for the feedback.

HoodieDog

If we go back to a single snap view (versus the multi-snap view), this problem will go away. Stay tuned.

I like the new look and it’s about time this place was updated. 😀 However, didn’t you try to take away the number of upvotes vs downvotes before? And didn’t it go horribly wrong?

HoodieDog

Yes. But this time it just makes sense given how much more bandwidth this site requires. It’s like fewer moving parts.

http://www.no.io Aerorth

hoodie know that i love you and have been an user since the page started… but one of the reasons i kept coming back over 9gag was that i have shit internet in a third world country and 9gag lagged like hell, plus i loved the comments right there on the image, i get that change is necessary and that it had to come eventually, i’m a programmer and the page WAS outdated but i feel we could have at least gotten a heads up, anyhow just wanted to leave my opinion here and i’ll try my best to stay here even if it’s just for your good ass admin skills and Analbumcovers comments

EDIT: wait a minute if i go into a post it looks and works just like the old layout (albeit with much needed improvements)

HoodieDog

Duly noted. Many have stated the same. If we decide to move back to a single snap format, it’ll be within a week or so. Want to give it a little time.

http://www.no.io Aerorth

awesome Hoodie, btw the change is worth it (been checking out the source) and it’s way more efficient

HoodieDog

Lot of optimization still to go. But we finally put on our big boy pants and are using a CDN. It’s about fucking time.

HoodieDog

We’re back to single-snap view!

http://www.no.io Aerorth

love u hoodie XD

David Thomas

Can’t find the comments using my fone

HoodieDog

The comments from the old site? Because they haven’t been brought over yet. Or are you talking about the comment for each snap?

David Thomas

On this new site. For some reason I couldn’t see them at first, then I could. Weird.

http://meilidraw.com Stickers the Bum

wow, you guys use WP for the backend? i legit would of never guessed, until the URL reading wp_login >_>

juggernaut

Instead of total votes, can we have the old positive and negatives shown separately?

juggernaut

Also can we not have the gifs auto play on the thumbnails?

juggernaut

Can we also have the random button back as well please

HoodieDog

It’s at the top header to the right. And if you’re on a keyboard, hit the R button.

Yeah, others are saying that same thing. We’ll see if we can address it in a couple of days. Are you on a Samsung?

FizzPop

^_^ answered above! Haha

HoodieDog

We’re going to change the thumbs, so that will *probably* be the case.

HoodieDog

Now that we’re back to single snap view, we’ll work on having the gifs on autoplay.

juggernaut

Thanks Hoodie!!

juggernaut

Hey Hoodie, for the last several days it takes absolutely ages to access the site and flick between snaps. Every other website I go to is virtually instant. Are you having any server issues?

HoodieDog

It’s been horrible. We took the site down for about an hour and fixed some things and *for the time being* response is greatly improved. More improvements to come in the next couple of days. We gotta get past this new site bullshit and fix these problems. It’s fucking driving me crazy… and everyone else too!

HoodieDog

Better now?

juggernaut

Not by much unfortunately Hoodie. Just accessing the homepage takes a while and 1-2 times the thumbs on the right have disappeared. However kudos to the adverts, they’re the first to load lol.

HoodieDog

We upgraded some hardware about an hour ago and will keep pushing to get this thing right.

Seems there are 2 buttons overlapped on the top of all pages on chrome on mobile.

Love the new look, but I feel like on our profile page we should also have a settings tab where we could have at least a little control of how the page looks on a personal level. I.e. auto load gifs and single post landing. Keep up the good work. I’ll still be browsing my nights away.

Edit: And/or maybe a button of the disqus logo like the fb one under each post that would link in to the comments. It wouldn’t have to do anything more than actually clicking on the snap it’s self, but the logo would at least give a hint at where the comments are, because I didn’t have a clue where they where at first

HoodieDog

What kind of phone are you using? iPhone? Samsung? Other?

almightybeard

Samsung s7 edge

HoodieDog

Gonna ask you to check back in a day or so and let me know if it has cleared out.

FizzPop

Have the same problem on my huawei and samsung. Dunno if that titbit is any help but *shrugs

HoodieDog

Okay. One more question, were they connected over the same network (cellular or wifi) when you test them?

FizzPop

Just checked – same issue on both wifi and mobile data. I only checked in Chrome browser, though.
As I said somewhere else, as well, its only an issue if you are logged into a lolsnaps profile (obviously – the notification bell isn’t present if you’re not logged into an account)

almightybeard

Mine is both cellular and Wi-Fi. Agreed only happens when logged into the site

FizzPop

You also using chrome?
I don’t have the drive to dl a different browser to see if the problem carries throughout

almightybeard

Yep on chrome

FizzPop

Of course, *facepalm* mentioned right there in the first sentence. My apologies

Yeah, we just pushed the change a couple of hours ago. Thanks for the pic.

almightybeard

You won’t have to worry about a day or so…im on pretty consistently LOL

HoodieDog

Just checking to see if this problem has cleared out on your phone. I’ve pinged others who had the same problem and it seems to have resolved itself.

almightybeard

Not fixed here. Anything I should do on my end?

HoodieDog

No. We’ll keep working on finding a solution. Thanks!

almightybeard

I’m logged in thru the facebook log in button, and I tired clearing cookies already. Keep up the good work you guys

HoodieDog

Yeah, it’s only happening on certain Android phones. Doesn’t seem to be happening in Apple phones.

almightybeard

Well that’s crap

HoodieDog

This should now be fixed. Can you confirm?

almightybeard

Looks good boss

almightybeard

New problem…mobile snaps not scaled to fit the screen..are you guys aware of that one?

HoodieDog

Yes.

HoodieDog

This *should* be fixed. Your browser cache may still show a few of the wonky snaps here and there, but it should clear out.

FizzPop

Hello there again @HoodieDog:disqus – I came here first to read what’s new, then had a little bit of a browse, and now have some (hopefully) informed questions (which might seem like suggestions – if they’re taken as suggestions, awesome)

First of all: should we be calling “staff”, here, rather than “hoodie dog” (or is it “lolsnaps” – cos I’ve seen that profile around too)? I don’t want to be annoying the wrong people.

Second of all: Profiles: the “last active” feature. Could this be hidden? Not necessarily removed – just… y’know… might get people into trouble 😛

Thirdly: Hotkeys: I’ve found they’re mostly the same, which is great, but it would be greater if newest in New and Vote could be brought back (I know Fresh and Front Page are the new names but New and Vote is shorter for referencing here – not asking for it to be changed (also, hotkeys for Fresh and Front Page, would it be F for Fresh and H for Home; or remain V and N like the old days?))

Fourthly: Timeline: When starting at newest and moving back with Previous, is everything in chronological order? If yes; awesome. If no; is this an accident, or on purpose? If on purpose, please change it back to chrono… I haven’t browsed a heck of a lot but it seems the timeline is not “correct” – but this might just be my brain getting all confused – if it is just my brain, kindly ignore this point.
I don’t know. When facebook started mixing posts out of chronological order, I got pissed off a lot. A lot of content is missed out on and this still sort of frustrates me there, I don’t want it to frustrate me here, too.

Fifthly: Voting: Is 10 votes in 12 hours still the requirement for a post to move to New? I ask because I started at newest in Fresh and then after a couple of snaps I saw posts either posted more than 12 hours ago and/or had more than 10 votes…
this leads me to Fifthly.2: At the end of Vote, are we taken straight into New? This is fine, actually it’s pretty cool; I just want to know cos I didn’t know that was gonna happen and I was/am slightly confused – did that even happen? I don’t know. Maybe I just haven’t browsed enough.
this leads me to Fifthly.2.1: If the movement from Vote to New is automatic, maybe say so, like it used to be, with Fresh or Front Page highlighted at the top? Maybe that’s just cos I’m confused, with the transition, about where I am… I probably need to take a few moments and blink a bit, to readjust my bearings 🙂

Sixthly: Multi-Snap vs Single-Snap View: Mentioned a lot here already – I didn’t want to mention it because of the number of times it’s already been mentioned, but for feedback purposes I suppose it would be good for your tally of people asking for this. It would be great if we could choose and then be able to keep that choice, somehow, either as a page/profile setting or as a bookmark. I quite like multi-snap for when I’m not feeling social or don’t have the time, but still want lols – So I don’t mind if it stays. But the comments are awesome, and what makes this place worth coming back to. I’m surprised and pleased to find out that I’m one of the 5% of regulars who engage on this site.

As a side, just came to mind, also: Damn. It literally just “poofed” out of my brain again. And I’m typing this now trying to remember… hoping it comes to me… Nope. I’ll come back with more questions later if it comes back to me –

Again, thank you, all.

Edit: I realise now with another squiz through the comments here; I’ve mentioned things already mentioned a number of times – there’s just so much going on here, so many comments, my brain is a static jumble – please forgive me

HoodieDog

Very thorough and thoughtful. I really appreciate it. Have responded to some of these elsewhere, but plan to put together a blogpost that gives everyone an overview of the issues and our plant to address them. Again, thanks.

FizzPop

Thank you 🙂 I assumed (at least, hoped) another blogpost was coming. When I’m not at work and I have a few moments I’ll come back here and read through everything again!

Good luck 😛

HoodieDog

1. There’s a few of us who post images. Most prominently, you’ll see Staff, LolSnaps, and HoodieDog. Admin is the account to which all of the migrated snaps were tied, but it’s not active going forward. I’m pretty much the face and voice of the site as the other two accounts are curators that work for me. Our developers have accounts, but don’t post.
2. Not sure how this will get people in trouble. Help me out there.
3. Yes, we’ll bring them back. Might be something other than N and V, but we can do it.
4. Most of the navigation bugs for FRESH and FRONT PAGE navigation have been fixed. Still some nits and nats to take care of, though.
5. It *should* end when you reach the final snap on Fresh, but it automatically continues to Front Page. Let me noodle on this one… not sure if I like it or not (but it is pretty cool). Yes, still takes 10 points to reach Front Page in 12 hours. I think most of the problems and confusion you experienced earlier with this have been fixed.
6. Will get with my developer on the option to choose multi- versus single-snap. We tried to do that in an earlier site a couple of years ago and it cratered load times. Having a VOTE/FRESH section really messes with WordPress. If I thought the community would accept it, I’d go back to getting rid of VOTE/FRESH and just throw everything in NEW/FRONT PAGE. if a snap received (negative) -10 points, it would be removed from the queue. That way, we wouldn’t have such a nasty navigation system this new site is challenged with. Get rid of the bad snaps earlier and solve the navigation and load problems we currently experience by having both VOTE and NEW.

Hope this helps.

FizzPop

1. Cool – got it. So you’re the right one to tag with queries/suggestions? Just want to get that straight cos I feel it might be assumed by everyone but really could be spread out, maybe. I don’t want to be annoying.
2. Mostly – I browse at work in between tasks… could somehow be used against me… maybe… It doesn’t really matter.
3. Great news
4. Got it. I know you know, but after a point in the time line (doggy pool party), where all the older snaps were brought over, it’s still a bit screwy. But it doesn’t matter. Just forces one to browse random.
5. Cool. I like it, but I’m confused about what happens when a post in FRESH moves to FRONT PAGE while I’m still somewhere in between but I think I’m just obsessive about chronology. I don’t like to miss anything.
6. I’ve become very fond of the VOTE/FRESH section, but I understand your reasoning – I have ideas but don’t want to step on toes and am struggling right now to formulate thoughts I can actually communicate to others – I’m trying to be concise.

Thank you for getting back to me, I wasn’t expecting it. Good luck for the next while!

HoodieDog

PM me if you want. Would love to hear your comments. Go to your profile and send me a message. AND THAT GOES FOR ANYONE ELSE WHO CREATED AN ACCOUNT.

HoodieDog

The N = Front Page and V = Fresh hotkey is now working.

FizzPop

Whoop! Awesome 🙂 thanks for letting me know

Drop Message

Most things and nitpicks have already been mentioned; count me among those who’d prefer the single-snap view as default due to the prominence of the comments. Though I still think the multi-snap view is a good option to have and should be easily accessible/discoverable for those who wish to use it, I definitely thing it’s a nice addition to the site.

But yes, all in all, me mostly likey, methinks. 🙂

HoodieDog

We’re back to single snap view and will be adding the multi-snap view to the menu for those who want it.

Drop Message

Ah, glorious!

Carlos the Dwarf

Hoodie, not sure if someone has commented on this (not going to read 97 comments to find out). I need the sidebar thumbnails to see how many times to hit “previous” to get to the point of where I was last time I was looking at the site.
P.S. I hate change, not that it matters!

HoodieDog

Several have commented on that same issue. We’ll get that changed.

HoodieDog

Now that we’re back to single snap view, we’ll begin to address the sidebar navigation. We’ve got a few other priorities ahead of it, so give us a week or so.

Lychee Ais

Hoodie. The image that loads on single view is as big as yo momma’s ass. Pardon my french tehee.
Is it suppose to be that girnomous? I have to decrease from 100% to 75% to view em comfortably.

HoodieDog

The old site was 728 pixels and this is now 750-ish pixels. So, yes, there’s an uptick in size. Probably not on our radar to reduce it right now.

TheLittleMe

The entire site feels empty and confusing, everything blends together because of no form of division in the content. The entire background being one dull grey makes me doze off looking at it. It also blends in with the typical white background on a lot of those phone-posts (https://i.gyazo.com/81068375d5208ffeb161fcf81ae992c0.jpg) I have no idea where the title is at first glance, and I have no idea why your face is there above the image until my mind finally settles down.

There’s also little information of where one post ends and the next begins when you browse in your multi-view. It comes across like you’ve taken inspiration from Imgur on the browing, but they have clear borders on their posts, which makes it clear when you’re looking at another post in the multi-view equivalent.

HoodieDog

Thanks very much for the feedback. We’ll adjust some of these items over the coming week or so.

HoodieDog

Now that we’ve solved some of the bigger issues, we’ll begin to address usability and design. It’ll happen slowly over the next couple of weeks.

Fuhake Fakerson

Great… now you look just like 9gag… continuous scrolling, no separation of posts, having to click on the post to read the comments instead of just scrolling down (the comments are often funnier than the post).

HoodieDog

Chill out. Lots of folks have said the same thing and we’ll move the site back to single snap instead of multi-snap. Sometimes you gotta put something out there to figure out how passionate the community is about it. In this case, most DO NOT like the multi-snap scroll. Give us a week to fix it. Working on other bugs right now.

Jeanne

bless you – that’s actually one of the main reasons (other than the awesome people here) that I LIKE lolsnaps – the single post, non spammy stuff! easier to read at work then 😛

Fuhake Fakerson

I’m chill. Hoodie, I am a web developer for 10 years so I feel your pain, I just hate the community of 9gag and everything associated with it.

HoodieDog

We’re cool.

HoodieDog

The single snap view is back.

Darin Gordon

Is there a way to zoom in on page, sometimes writing is too small to read and can’t zoom in or expand page like most websites

FizzPop

I’ve had that problem a lot on mobile since before the change – you can open the image on its own and zoom in (depending on your OS you either just tap on the picture, or you hold the picture for a second choose “open image in another tab”).
On a pc browser (I had the opposite problem where everything was generally too big) you can use the browser to zoom in and out. Using chromes settings, I live with lolsnaps zoomed out at 75%, and zoom in as and when necessary.

HoodieDog

I assume you’re talking about mobile. I’ve got it on the list of enhancements, but it’s down the list quite a bit…

Johnny Alpha

igzactly as said – wtf Hoodie?

HoodieDog

I have no idea what you mean.

Fielious

TLDR:
1. Click first post’s title/heading.
2. Use left arrow key like before.

Carlos the Dwarf

Your’e part way there. The sidebar thumbnails are back, but no “previous/next” buttons to go to the next chronological group of thumbnails. I feel like I am missing lots of content by not finding the point where I left off in my previous viewing.

HoodieDog

Now that we have gone back to the single snap view for FRESH and FRONT PAGE, we’ll start to fix the sidebar navigation this week. Some custom work there, so it’ll take a little time.

FirstTimePoster

Currenlty there’s a gif on frontpage and there’s no way to have the scroll through page it seems.
is this intended or is the scroll through page gone already, since no one likes changes?

HoodieDog

We’ve gone back to the single post view on both FRESH and FRONT PAGE. We’ll be adding the scrolling pages to the menu in about an hour… so users will retain that option.

HoodieDog

Gonna be working on that this week so that gifs autoplay

Kaysif

I love that you made it back to the single snap view for mobile, but now there are only 10 snaps in total. 9 hours ago is apparently the creation of the site as there are no posts before 9 hours go… That mobile can view.

HoodieDog

Clearly, we’re still trying to get the ‘caching’ right. The code is written correctly, but there’s a couple of layers (server –> CDN –> Browser that aren’t on same page.

BMH1965

The new page(s) are usually a lot slower than before the recent change – never had a ‘time out’ issue before but now it happens often.